Keaton Lee

Master in Public Policy

• Belfer Young Leaders Student Fellow: most competitive student fellowship in largest research center.
• Thesis presented to The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

Bachelor of Arts · Double major in Government and Philosophy, Dean's List, magna cum laude

• Pi Sigma Alpha: National Political Science Honor Society.
• Study abroad: Yonsei University, South Korea.

Advanced HS Diploma — Computer Science

Artificial intelligence/ML, parallel computing, data structures. Research in Jefferson Computer Systems Lab.

Foreign Policy Senior Consultant

• Earned First Year Impact award, achieving exceptional performance among new hires.
• Coordinate high profile international engagements such as senior steering committees, aligning interagency stakeholders to advance agency objectives.
• Manage complex policy and operations timelines with international stakeholders to deliver critical-path milestones.
• Draft and manage clearance of international policy documents, orchestrating staffing, review, and accuracy.
• Spearhead AI implementation across branch, contract, and office, identifying opportunities to enhance process efficiency.

Founder, Lead Developer

• Secured $20k in impact funding to create Mental Break, an independent mental health-focused video game.
• Recruited a five-person creative team and lead ongoing development across pixel art, graphic design, sound design, musical composition, and programming.
• Project: mentalbreak.io

Student Research Assistant (compensated)

• Conducted in-depth research for Executive Director Dr. Jieun Baek for Privileged but Powerless (2026), analyzing political behavior and defection patterns among North Korean elites.

Technical Actions Officer

Dec 2020 – Aug 2022

• Advised the Director of Research of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) on strategic planning, partnerships and R&D priorities.
• Briefed NGA leadership and Congressional delegations, defending research budgets and promoting cross-sector partnerships.
• Conducted enterprise software program review to inform cost saving actions.
• Ghost-wrote memos circulated to Intelligence Community leadership on generative AI policy and the future of remote work.
• Engineered a custom automation tool that saved consultants over five hours a week, improving team productivity and process compliance.

Innovation Program Manager (Junior)

Sep 2020 – Dec 2020

• Administered NGA Cooperative R&D Agreement pipeline to grow cross-sector innovation partnerships among academia, the private sector, and government.

Operations Project Manager

• Designed intern program and supported the Chief Operating Officer to enhance people and facilities operations.
• Negotiated with payroll and HR vendors, achieving a reduction in fees of more than 5% annual payroll.

Intern — Korea Missile Analysis Cell (compensated)

Summer/Winter 2018–2020

• Achieved top intern designation out of 300+ for groundbreaking analysis of North Korean ballistic missile program.
• Delivered two high-level intelligence briefings to the Director of NGA and Director of Analysis, presenting original analysis and recommendations.
• Independently developed and deployed data analysis software suite to unlock new intelligence and save analysts 100+hr/week.

Intern — Office of the CIO and Technology (compensated)

Summer 2017

• Designed Agile development workflows for NGA's in-house enterprise cloud network development, streamlining product development and testing.

Student Research Assistant (compensated)

• Applied machine learning models to evaluate global nuclear nonproliferation trends, synthesizing open-source data for policy analysis.